This June was a different one considering everything that was still going on with COVID-19. June is typically one of my favorite months because it starts off with our anniversary celebration on June 2nd and it is the first month of summer vacation!
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To keep with my theme for the year in turning everything into a race, I woke up on our anniversary and ran a 13k, which equals 8.1 miles. Jennifer didn't want to participate so I got up early to run and see the sunrise. |
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| Thirteen years later and I am so glad this lady is still by my side. She is truly my best friend and I am so glad we get to experience life together. |
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| I had planned out a socially distanced day for Jennifer and I. The kids got to tag along on the anniversary day date. We started by grabbing lunch at Goodfellas and we took it to have a picnic at Georgetown College where Jennifer and I went to college. We had planned to grab dessert at this little bakery, but it didn't open until the afternoon (which was our real purpose for going to Georgetown). Instead we headed down to Berea to hike the Pinnacles. This was the first time that the kids had hiked on these trails. |
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| At the top of the Pinnacles in Berea. I just love the technology that allows us to take pictures when nobody is around. We couldn't have asked for any better weather for the day either. |
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We got done hiking and I was determined to get a milkshake from the place in Georgetown that I had my sights set on before the hike. Everyone else in the car said they would rather have Steak-n-Shake milkshakes. They finished theirs about the time I got in line to order mine. I picked the Turtle milkshake from Sweet Matriarch and it was insane. It was served in a mason jar, the rim was covered with fudge and pecans, whipped cream, a chocolate cupcake, and caramel drizzled over the whole thing. It made a mess in the car, but it was delicious!
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| Every two months like clock work I head to the blood center to donate blood. It is so simple and only takes a few minutes out of your day. I promise that the patients and their families are so grateful for your donation. I see first hand in the clinic everyday that I work the need. So please if you are able GO DONATE! |
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| More bike rides with my kiddos. On this night I challenged the kids to a race, them on their bike and I running beside them. They destroyed me, but it was also the fastest they had ever peddled those little bikes. |
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| Another day off from work means that we are getting out and trying to do something in nature. It was different because you had to reserve a time to come hike and you were only allowed to stay in the park for 2 hours. Nobody complained on the hike and everyone walked the whole time. Jennifer got a little crazy and asked if I thought we should try to take trip out west to hike at some of the National Parks for our upcoming vacation. I told her that I thought it was maybe a little early for the kids to be doing more strenuous and much longer hikes. Hopefully in a few years we can go get some hiking in out west with the kids. |
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| Landon's top teeth started to get a little loose. After a couple days of wiggling it around we got it out. This was his third tooth that he has lost. |
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Landon had wrote a note to the tooth fairy because he had some questions as to what she did with the teeth after she collected them. Well, the next morning he got a response. It said:
Dear Landon,
I love to collect to teeth. They are so white and shinny. I use them as bricks in my kingdom. I have built a castle, streets and statues. I am currently building an amusement park with a roller coaster and ferris wheel. Your strong teeth will really help with the rides. Thank you for your help.
Love,
The Tooth Fairy
I put the penny in there so that you could see how small this little letter really was. I was so surprised to get the response, I actually had no idea what she wanted all those teeth for, but it makes perfect sense! |
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His front tooth must have been giving some support to its neighbor tooth because as soon as he lost the first one the other one became wiggly. This was the first tooth of both kids that mommy got to pull. It was barely hanging on in there.
 | Landon had been asking me to go play "big" golf. So, we headed out to our local par 3 for a boys round. He played the whole 18 and had a lot of fun.
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| I typically don't enjoy reading, but this was a birthday gift from my little brother and it was written by the head of Kentucky Sports Radio, Matt Jones. He went to all 120 counties in Kentucky to see how Mitch McConnell has helped or not helped them during his 4 decades that he has been a Senator. It is a great read and I would highly recommend reading it, especially before you make your decision on election day in November. Every Kentuckian at least has something in the book that they can personally relate to. As soon as I got it I opened it up and read the McLean County part to see about my childhood hometown. |
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| Our neighbors were doing some spring cleaning and they found this Disney themed kid cookbook. They asked Brinley if she would like it and man was it a hit with her. She went through and wrote down all the recipes that she wanted to try out. She even went and tried to figure out all the ingredients that we needed to buy at the store so she could make the stuff she wanted. This was some Princess Pink Popcorn, which was popcorn with some melted marshmallows and strawberry jello all mixed together. The kids said it was too sweet! |
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| One of the unnecessary Amazon purchases during the quarantine was some silicone donut molds. We tried them out and made some with glaze, some powdered sugar, and some cinnamon sugar. Landon wanted extra powdered sugar on his! |
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| At the beginning of the pandemic a lot of businesses decided to have specials or deals for healthcare workers. Crocs, which is a brand that I have been a supporter of for years was one of these groups. Everyday they gave away 20,000 pairs of their shoes for free to healthcare workers. Only problem was that it was an online lottery of sorts. The back story is that I wear a pair of black crocs to work every single day. I tried for multiple weeks to try and win a pair for myself to no avail. A lot of my co-workers had won a free pair and finally one of them won the lottery again and told me to come put in my information. When you win you put in your size and they send you a random pair. Well, these tye died crocs showed up on my door a few weeks later. Totally not my style, but the kids and my co-workers love them! So, I change it up every once and a while and wear these instead of my plain black pair of Crocs. |
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| The hardest part of this pandemic has been not being able to see family. We have stayed away from each other because we didn't want to risk anyone getting sick. However, with McKinley finishing up his residency at UK and moving we decided it might be one of the last times all of us could get together for some time.Olivia and the kids had a blast playing with each other and Olivia even had her first orange sherbet push pop. I know Grandma and Grandpa were happy to have all their kids and grandkids together at one time. |
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| It had been such a long time since I have gotten to see my little niece Olivia. She is growing up so quickly and is full of energy! |
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| The whole crew all together again after not all being with each other since Christmas. It had been quite a long time! |
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| I had been going on tons of bike rides with the kids during this time. Well, I decided to push them further than I ever had before. I didn't tell them, but we normally do 2.5 miles and I was going to push them to do a 4 to 5 mile ride. Well, three miles into the ride my back tire popped and I didn't have anything to fix it with. I tried to push it, but the inner tube kept coming out and keeping it from rolling properly. That meant I had to walk the other two miles with my bike on my shoulder. |
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| The kids wanted a summer treat so we went to Dairy Queen for a blizzard and cotton candy dipped ice cream cone. |
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| My little brother is moving again! Since he started college I have helped him move a total of 9 times! This time I am moving him to his own house and he is going to start at his first job. He started working this year as an attending at Vanderbilt University in Internal Medicine. I am very proud of him and I know he will do great things. Not exactly the best time to be starting in medicine, you know during a worldwide pandemic, but you have to start somewhere. |
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| We made the trip down to Nashville to help him move into the house. We enjoyed some local hot chicken and even had breakfast at a cool little donut shop, Five Daughters Bakery. Most of us got croissant donuts and they were delicious! |
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| Then we tried out Top Golf Nashville. The kids had such a good time that I signed us up for the summer pass which allows you to play all summer long. |
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| For Father's Day most men would just lay around the house and relax. Not me! I woke the kids up and we headed out for a run with the jogger stroller. Man they have gotten heavy over the years. I ran an 8k, which is five miles. One kilometer for every year that I have been a father. We saw eight bunnies out on our run too which made Brinley really excited. |
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| Part of my Father's Day celebration leaked over into the following Monday. We headed up to Cincinnati to hike the Bender Mountain Trails. We spotted a buck walking in the woods while we were walking. After that we stopped for lunch at Panda Express, which is one of my favorite fast food restaurants. Lastly we went to play golf at Top Golf since we had our season pass and everything during the week is free before 5 pm. We ended up playing for two and a half hours and the kids loved it. |
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On the way home from Top Golf we decided to grab dinner at Malone's. This was the first time that we ate in a restaurant since the pandemic started in March. The kids were excited and Jennifer and I were a little anxious about all the necessary precautions. Every thing was great, but maybe we were just really tired of eating at home!
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| It is a privilege to get to vote in this democratic nation. We exercised our right to vote by absentee ballot this year. |
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| Chef Brinley was at it again with her Disney cook book. This time she made blueberry parfaits. They were really good. |
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| The city of Lexington decided to start baseball. The league where we normally play decided to cancel t-ball. I was set to be the head coach for both kids and we had a lot of our players returning from last years team. I saw a Facebook post from a friend about their child playing at Southeastern Baseball. I was able to sign Landon up, but Brinley wasn't interested in playing coach pitch. (Northern - where we played last year allows girls to play a year longer) Landon was so excited about getting to play, and so was I. We went out and started getting some practice in at a green space in the neighborhood. |
June 2020 may not have been what we were expecting, but you have to make the best of what you are given. I am so happy that we get to spend more time together and that the kids are officially on summer break. I hope that we are able to do some fun things together over the rest of their time off from school. Thanks for reading and may God bless you and your family!
